Discotek ’79 was well run but seemed to lack a focal point and excitement, a frequent comment being that it didn’t show a wide enough range of “separates” for club installation . . . London’s Embassy Club came in for even more comment following the fiasco there when a Disco Awards ceremony was short of drink, food and a decent DJ, making many industry leaders very angry indeed . . . Mayfair Gullivers’ Graham “Fatman” Canter won the industry voted London Club DJ award (Steve Walsh runner-up), Guildford Cinderella-Rockorfella’s Big Al getting the regional prize . . . Gof Abbey replaces Pete Dyos as EMI GRD’s disco plugger . . . Morgan Khan is cutting Pye’s R&B mailing list from 480 to 220 DJ’s . . . Gonzalez ‘Move It To The Music’, previously withdrawn despite 12in promos going out, will now be released! . . . Buddah’s new LP by Osibisa & Beverley Johnson “featuring The Emotions” is due in six weeks . . . Shropshire DJ Assn meets Monday (24) at 8:30pm in the Oak Hotel Shelton, Shrewsbury, the fairly funky Thursday residency of Assn chairman Dave Thomas (details Shrewsbury 62895) . . . DJ Federation PRO Mike McLean now presents the weekend 2 to 6am nightowl shows on Radio Clyde, the three programmes (divided as rock-disco-jazz on different nights) giving him such a workload that he has resigned his chairmanship of the local Strathclyde DJ Assn . . . Gordon Stone has replaced the now London-based Phil Mitchell on BBC Radio Humberside’s Tuesday 8:45 soul news slot, which only lasts 10 minutes at the moment due to lack of response from the area’s apathetic soul fans . . . Robbie Vincent’s Radio London soul show two sunny Saturdays ago came live from the enormous Brent Fair, where “mafia” hit men Chris Brown, Sean French, Fatman, Brother Louie, Steve Walsh and various tribes went on to wreak havoc at a nice innocent little DJ competition for youth club members – which George Power seemed somehow to have entered several times! . . . Froggy blew £450 on some temporary Technics just so he’ll have vari-speed decks when I join him at Southgate Royalty next Saturday (29) – now there’s a friend! . . . Mike Tarbuck (formerly Mike Law of Blackburn Golden Palms, Cavendish Gallingreaves Hotel & Liverpool Romeo & Juliets) is now at Blackpool Tiffanys, and suggests a carefully scrutinised register of bona fide DJ’s to get specially discounted new disco product on an offers system as one way round current promotion problems . . . Tea Council Young DJ winner Graham Thornton now spins funk disco at Leeds Foxes on Mon-Wed-Thur-Fridays . . . Mayfair Gullivers was home away from home for the Crusaders during their recent tour . . . Phil Black (0222-595121, 592867, 567865) hopes to leave Cardiff for a few nights’ work in London at the end of the month and invites offers – pity he doesn’t dress up as a schoolgirl! . . . Early Riser Discotheque Services (01-520 3461) have combined equipment sales literature with a useful “forward planner”-type 1980 gig calendar for covering with coloured stickers . . . Houston oil man Don Perry reports a recently visited Cairo club was playing disco music off 78 rpm records – he became inquisitive when he heard the speed of the scratches and clicks! . . . Rob Harknett (Roydon Lovers Leap mobile), returned from a working holiday in Denmark, says over there the police raid clubs that play too loud, while record prices are £1.75 for 7in, £3 plus for 12in, £7 for LP . . . US 12in imports have settled at around £3.15 here of course . . . Gary Neal (Bristol Reeves) is so fed up with Just 4U’s Martin Starr issuing meaningless challenges to other funk clubs that he is ready to issue a challenge to Martin personally even though he doesn’t know what he’s challenging for – how about a joust at dawn? Chivalry ain’t dead, lads!

LOVE DE-LUXE: ‘Here Comes That Sound Again’ (Atlantic K 11359T) (BNDA debut 6/30/79)
Smash US remix 12in of the tritely simple but naggingly powerful 117bpm UK girlie group thudder, a nice chop-mixer with Al Hudson, out originally on limper 12in early this year (when it only hit Norfolk!).

POUSSEZ: ‘Come On And Do It’ (Vanguard VSL 5015) (BNDA debut 4/14/79)
Super-charged 12in remix of the buoyantly tripping 122bpm girlie group strutter now has sexy panting added (the 7in starts with it) after the bongo-backed breathily excited “where’d you learn to funk like that, c’est bon” bit. Lotsa fun!

JUPITER BEYOND: ‘The River Drive’ (US AZO FW 18112)
Originally imported in very limited numbers and hot for Bristol jocks around the New Year, this is due soon via Pye and has finally hit London’s “mafia”. An exciting powerful 126bpm percussion intro suddenly switches into a smoother chix-crooned flowing 125bpm 12in loper with vibes and lushly jazzy strings behind the whapping backbeat before percussion and synthesizer join in for a flying 126bpm finish. Dyn-o-mite!

SERGIO MENDES BRASIL ‘88: ‘I’ll Tell You’ (US Elektra AS-11425) (BNDA debut 9/29/79)
Terrific staccato smacking Emotions-type shrill chix-squawked 122bpm 12in strutter has a clonking intro that mixes mind-blowingly well out of a slightly varied-up and synched Gene Chandler – you can run the two together for quite a while, and nobody’ll know!

STERLING: ‘Roll-Her, Skater’ (US Motown M 00032 D1)
Brian Holland-produced soulfully hollered rattling 118bpm 12in leaper with a usefully exciting chant near the start, much better than the roller-disco title might lead one to expect.

CITY STREETS: ‘Get It Up, Get It In’ (US RCA PD-11700)
Bouncily chugging staccato chanted 114bpm strutter on re-remixed 12in is jaunty simple fun of a fairly inane variety, the repetitive “get it up, get it in, get it on, get it out” lyric being sexily suspect!

DEXTER WANSEL: ‘Time Is Slipping Away’ LP (US Philadelphia Int’l JZ 36024)
Hottest new cut is the gently jogging “sleazy” 50/100bpm chick-sung ‘The Sweetest Pain’ slowie while his 12in-issued 118bpm ‘I’ll Never Forget (My Favourite Disco)’ and 117bpm ‘It’s Been Cool’ funk stamper are here shorter. ‘Let Me Rock You’ is like the latter but a more “melodic” 124bpm “rock” smacker, ‘Funk Attack’ is heavy 99bpm P-funk, ‘One For The Road’ is a slow 69bpm instrumental jazz-funk jolter, the smoochers of the set being the 42½bpm title track and 49/98bpm ‘New Beginning’.

PATTI WHATLEY: ‘Backstreet’ (US RFC DRCS 8884) (BNDA debut 9/29/79)
Thumping freaky 131bpm intro is the best bit of this messy Jim Burgess-mixed 129bpm jumble, which clarifies into an extended 132bpm break for the last half – the instrumental B-side also being less cluttered.